Those Things in the Ming Dynasty Part 1 The Great Emperor Hongwu _ Chapter 7 The Terrible Rival
These two people are both heroes of the world. If they had appeared in different dynasties, they should have achieved great achievements. Unfortunately, history is destined to make this era more lively.
This is a knockout match, and only the one who persists to the end will win.
According to Gu Kaizhi’s theory of eating sugar cane, we will introduce the weaker ones first:
Zhang Shicheng, male, born in 1321, is a smuggler of salt by profession. He is from Taizhou. Here I want to talk about smuggled salt, an industry that has existed for a long time in the feudal era. Salt is a state-controlled item and cannot be sold without permission, but seawater is there.
It is kept there, and it will not be dried if it is not dried, and it will not be sold if it is not sold, so many people are interested in this way to make a fortune.
According to economic theory, monopoly will inevitably lead to the degradation and bureaucracy of the industry, and the ancient salt industry is no exception. People can buy private salt that is much better than official salt at one-third of the price. In order to strictly control this
The interests of an industry, feudal governments of all dynasties, whether it is the Han, Wei, Northern and Southern Dynasties, Sui and Tang, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, Song and Yuan Dynasties, and regardless of whether their method of governing the country is Taoism, Confucianism or Legalism, they all dealt with this issue.
Without exception, they followed Han Feizi's theory.
This theory holds that the reason why people still do it knowingly that fishing for gold in the river is punishable by death is because they have a sense of luck, so the punishment must be increased.
The penalties for selling illegal salt have also been increasing. In the Sui and Tang Dynasties, selling one stone (about one hundred kilograms) of illegal salt was punishable by death. As we all know, Cheng Yaojin was a illegal salt dealer. Judging from his size, he should have sold more than one stone.
It is really puzzling that someone with a hundred pounds of illegal salt could still be released from prison through an amnesty.
Then the character of Zhang Shicheng should be clear. First of all, he should be a person who is not afraid of death. If he is afraid of death, he cannot do this; in addition, he should be a relatively wealthy person, and he can make many friends with money; finally, he
He must have a deep hatred for the rule of the Yuan Dynasty, because this government did not allow him to sell private salt and executed many of his friends.
In the thirteenth year of Zhizheng, Zhang Shicheng rebelled in Taizhou. He was a private salt dealer, so most of his brothers in the uprising were also in this business. He did not belong to the Red Turban Army, which was mainly poor farmers. This made him and Zhu Yuanzhang
The long-term conflicts laid the foundation for this.
As one of the many rebels at that time, Zhang Shicheng determined his historical status through an arduous battle.
The most difficult battle - the Battle of Gaoyou
In the 13th year of Zhengzheng year, after Zhang Shicheng raised his army, he successively captured Taizhou, Xinghua and other places, established his capital in Gaoyou, named him King Cheng, and named his country Da Zhou, marking the year with God's blessing.
Now it seems that this Tianyou name is really well received.
Zhang Shicheng had not been on the throne for long when the Yuan Dynasty sent troops to fight. In fact, the officials of the Yuan Dynasty also accepted death. They would beat anyone who claimed to be king. If he met someone who was immersed in rebellion and did not claim to be king, he would ignore it.
Zhu Yuanzhang took advantage of this.
Tuotuo, a famous minister of the Yuan Dynasty whom we mentioned above, led an army of one million (note that this is a real number) to attack Gaoyou. The so-called "departure of the army was unprecedentedly successful" ("History of the Yuan Dynasty"). At this time, the private salt dealer Zhang Shicheng
Showed his courage and determination.
At that time, many people suggested abandoning Gaoyou. Zhang Shicheng thought for a long time and said: "Where else can we go?"
Yes, where else can we go?
I have to die here!
The Yuan army used various weapons to attack the city, including a variety of artillery. Zhang Shicheng and his two younger brothers Zhang Shiyi and Zhang Shide were holding on to the city tower. All the soldiers could see their figures. More importantly, the hearts of these insurrectionists Have such a belief:
Surrender is also death, resistance is also death, it is better to resist and die! At least die tragically!
Therefore, with the support of this spirit, the seemingly weak small town of Gaoyou resisted the million-dollar army for three months. This is the power of daring to fight hard.
Just when Gaoyou was about to be captured, problems arose within the Yuan Dynasty government.
In past history books, we have always seen many treacherous officials. These people only care about themselves and not the country. They are the objects of everyone's hatred. For example, Qin Hui, such as Jia Sidao, always come at critical moments to ruin national affairs. Facts It proves that ethnic minority regimes also have treacherous officials who will do this.
The content after that is cliche. The villain slandered the emperor. The emperor was worried that the generals outside would rebel and ordered him to come back immediately. So Tuotuo evacuated Gaoyou, and his efforts to save the Yuan Dynasty were in vain.
There was God's blessing at the critical moment. Although the name was obtained well, if he could not persist for those three months, there would be no final victory. Therefore, it was not the good reign name that determined Zhang Shicheng's fate, but his courage.
After this battle, Zhang Shicheng became famous all over the world. He continued his efforts and successively conquered the fertile areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, becoming not the largest but the richest man (as expected of a private salt business).
However, since then, Zhang Shicheng has changed. He has always been a small businessman. Suddenly he has the richest territory in the country. He no longer has to sell smuggled salt. He is rich and has a house. He is holding a steamed bun and wants to dip it in it. Dip white sugar into white sugar and want to dip brown sugar into brown sugar.
Zhu Yuanzhang had an accurate evaluation of him: he was small.
This person does not have great ambitions, but he is indeed a good person, and a great person. He was born taciturn, and was tolerant to others. He was exempted from taxes in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang accepted his favor and built ancestral halls for him. .But his excessive generosity and lack of opinion also prevent him from becoming a hero, but only a hero.
Chen Youliang, whom we are going to introduce below, is a real hero.
But before introducing him, we must introduce his original boss Xu Shouhui.
Xu Shouhui, whose date of birth is unknown (the date of death is quite accurate), was from Luotian, Hubei, and was a cloth seller. It is said that the young man was very energetic and upright, and was the most beautiful man in Luotian. Because he was often blackmailed by officials of the Yuan Dynasty, he He was dissatisfied with the Yuan Dynasty. In the eleventh year of Zhengzheng, Liu Futong's uprising passed through his hometown. Xu Shouhui's long-term accumulated anger finally could not be suppressed and he prepared to rebel. His method was to promote feudal superstition, this time Mingjiao.
In order to carry out propaganda, he also found two helpers, one was Zou Pusheng (a strongman) who was working in Macheng, and the other was Jiangxi monk Peng Yingyu (you should be familiar with it). After several months of promoting Mingjiao, he launched an uprising in the Dabie Mountains. They attacked Luotian in one fell swoop. He was a tributary of the Red Scarf Army, so he also wore a red scarf. The rebel army fought continuously, conquering Huangzhou and Xishui successively, and finally made Xishui County the capital.
His country name is worth mentioning. It is the most peculiar since ancient times. It is called Tianwan (not the reign name). Where did this country name come from? Please join me in playing a word splitting game and combine the two characters Tianwan. If you remove the top of the word, you can find that it is the Dayuan Dynasty. This cloth dealer was afraid that his country name would not be able to suppress the Yuan Dynasty, so he came up with such a bad idea to get a bargain on the words. Every time I see this country name, I always feel that it is too much. It means it will be over in a few days.
At that time, Xu Shouhui's territory was very small, only Huangzhou and Xishui, but his ostentation was very large. He had all the institutions of the Yuan Dynasty. With only a few thousand people, he established the Marshal's Office of the Tongjun Army, the Zhongshu Province
, Privy Council, and the Sixth Department of the Central Committee. I really don’t know if he still has soldiers under his command. They may have all gone to become cadres. Zou Pusheng was the Grand Master, and Ni Wenjun was the leading marshal. At this time, a Xishui man joined his team. This man looked like
Extraordinary and good handwriting is none other than Chen Youliang.
The awesome Chen Youliang
Among the uprising armies at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, many leaders failed to withstand the sugar-coated attacks of the Yuan Dynasty and were recruited. Even Zhu Yuanzhang had secretly communicated with the Yuan Dynasty. He was the only one who resisted the foreign rule of the Yuan Dynasty from beginning to end and dared to take responsibility.
Being unyielding and persevering to the end is a good man!
Chen Youliang, male, born in 1320, originally surnamed Xie, worked as a fisherman and was from Mianyang (now Xiantao, Hubei Province). He once worked as a clerk in the county. When Xu Shouhui's rebel army came to his hometown, he joined Xu Shouhui's army.
.Because he was very educated and resourceful, he quickly gained the trust of Xu Shouhui and the then Prime Minister Ni Wenjun.
In the thirteenth year of the Zhizheng period, because Xu Shouhui had already proclaimed himself emperor (not aware of current affairs), the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty mobilized armies from several provinces to encircle Xu Shouhui and break through the capital. Peng Yingyu died in the battle. Only then did Xu Shouhui wake up and led his troops to retreat to the Huangmei area of Hubei Province.
They fought guerrillas and reorganized the army. Then the Red Scarf Army launched a massive counterattack, retaking Jiangxi and Hunan, and reestablished their capital in Hanyang County (today's Hanyang, Wuhan), changing the name to Taiping.
At that time, Xu Shouhui's method of reorganizing the troops was really powerful. He wrote a Buddhist character on the back of each soldier and said that this would make him invulnerable. This lie seemed to be easily exposed, because the soldiers would find out that it was not true when they arrived on the battlefield (if you don't believe it)
I'll try to shoot you); there is a second half to this lie. If you unfortunately die in battle, it's not because the words don't work, but because your heart is not sincere. In other words, you didn't die because I wrote the words.
If you die, blame yourself, who made you sincere!
This kind of absurd logic similar to "Catch-22" was very popular at the time, so his soldiers had to chant sutras before going to the battlefield. Many Yuan Dynasty government troops were confused and thought they had encountered a monk.
.
In contrast are his generals. These people are not vegetarians. They are all first-class famous generals. Under Xu Shouhui, there are the so-called four kings, namely Zou Pusheng (commander-in-chief), Ding Pulang (madman,
The reasons will be mentioned later), Zhao Pusheng (invincible with both swords), and Fu Youde (never defeated). These four led the troops to sweep through the Yuan Dynasty army and established the Tianwan regime.
In Xu Shouhui's army, brotherly loyalty is valued. If anyone betrays a brother, he will be despised and punished by everyone. This organizational system can easily remind us of the famous Hongxing Gang. But there are those who value loyalty.
There will definitely be people who are unloyal, and there are no exceptions since ancient times.
Prime Minister Ni Wenjun was such a person. He had been by Xu Shouhui's side and knew that he had no outstanding talents except that he was handsome. He was knowledgeable and talented, so why should he work under Xu Shouhui? So he tried to
He assassinated Xu Shouhui and usurped the throne. However, he was exposed. He had no choice but to flee from Hanyang to Huangzhou, because Huangzhou was Chen Youliang's hometown.
Ni Wenjun has always believed in Chen Youliang. Not only was he his leader, he also promoted Chen Youliang and made him a senior cadre in the army, which can be regarded as his master.
But he forgot an old Chinese saying, what kind of teacher is there, what kind of student is there.
What kind of person is Chen Youliang? He can be described in eight words: he is ruthless and bold. Judging from his subsequent behavior, there is indeed nothing he dare not do. Others value loyalty more than anything else.
But he treats loyalty as shit.
Others didn't dare to kill their bosses or brothers, but he did it without hesitation. After he did it, he even admitted without hesitation that it was me who did it. What can you do?
To analyze this character, we need to start with his childhood. He was originally a fisherman, and he was also the lowest fishermen. In the Yuan Dynasty, such fishermen generally did not go ashore, they ate and lived on boats, and the villagers did not deal with them.
Because they always have a lingering fishy smell. Chen Youliang grew up in such an environment.
He has been discriminated against and scolded by others since he was a child, as well as his actions and eyes that kept him away from him, which made him have a deep sense of inferiority in his heart. For him, the only way to change his destiny is by himself!
He studied hard and finally found a job writing paperwork in the local county government, but this job did not bring him dignity. Those who looked down on him still looked down on him, and the whispers and discussions he often heard drove him crazy.
It turns out that studying cannot change his identity. After thinking for a long time, Chen Youliang seemed to have finally found a way to make others respect him.
Climb up, keep climbing up, until you reach the highest peak. Those who look down on me will eventually bow their heads in front of me.
Therefore, when Xu Shouhui's rebel army came to his hometown, Chen Youliang, who was a civil servant of the Yuan Dynasty government, participated in the uprising and targeted the Yuan Dynasty, which paid him wages. His motivation for participating in the uprising was obviously different from that of the poor farmers.
A signal that means that in Chen Youliang's heart, faith and loyalty do not exist.
In his heart, the only important thing is power and status. When he is at the top, no one dares to despise him!
Among the things Chen Youliang studied, the Four Books, Five Classics and the Classics and History were not important. What he mastered best was the philosophy of life such as "killing people to silence", "eliminating the roots", "no poison, no husband", etc. Houheixue should
It was also his specialty. This was what Ni Wenjun admired about him, but what he didn't expect was that one day, Chen Youliang would use this trick on himself.
When Ni Wenjun ran to Chen Youliang with a nose that was not his nose and a shameless face, Chen Youliang still received him in a friendly manner, prepared a room and a change of clothes for him, and talked with him. Ni Wenjun suddenly felt that he had not misjudged the person, so he
The inside story was revealed, and the more he spoke, the angrier he became and shed tears. Chen Youliang looked at him calmly and asked the key sentence:
"How are Zhao Pusheng and the others doing?"
Hearing this, Ni Wenjun felt even more sad: "You don't know that those people are Xu Shouhui's buddies, but if we work together, we can definitely defeat them."
Okay, that's enough, I don't need to ask anymore.
One day later, Xu Shouhui of Hanyang received Ni Wenjun's head.